Too Late to Say Goodbye
by ncfan
Summary: Leia knows she should have been here sooner. But it doesn't matter. She's here now. Leia, Sabé.


**Summary**: Leia knows she should have been here sooner. But it doesn't matter. She's here now. Leia, Sabé.**  
Pairings**: implied Obi-Wan/Sabé**  
Author's Note**: Just so you know: being familiar only with the movies and the live-action series (though I have explored the wikia on many occasions), I will only employ characters from the movies in this oneshot, since I don't have the personalities of EU characters down enough to write about them.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Star Wars.

* * *

**raven among doves**

Leia can not remember a time when Sabé has not been in her life. She has always been there, standing straight-backed and strangely stiff, tall against all trials in life.

Sabé stands out starkly in the Alderaani court. Her foreign accent, though soft and lilting, is incredibly different from the Alderaani inflection; she stands head and shoulders above every other woman of the Alderaani court, and she dons clothing far darker than the whites and pale lavenders and blues and pinks favored by Alderaani ladies. Deep, dark midnight blue and pitch black are colors Sabé especially favors. Mourning colors, Leia realizes after she is gone, but whether Sabé never got over her hurts or the colors were just due to personal inclination Leia will never know.

And for another thing, Sabé does not emote nearly as much as Alderaani ladies are wont to do. She never laughs, and rarely smiles. Her face is a near perfect porcelain mask, white and utterly flawless, except for when she wears expressions of disdain, disgust or at times outright hatred, and when she does express outward emotion she is almost frighteningly intense.

In her early years, before she is explicitly told otherwise, Leia is under the impression that Sabé is her real mother, her birth mother. She has odd, disjointed dreams—more like memories—of a woman who calls her daughter, and this woman just looks so much like Sabé that Leia is apt to confuse the two women.

She calls Sabé "Mother" once, and stops after seeing Sabé's shocked, even mortified reaction.

Before Leia even knows it, Sabé is an irreplaceable fixture in her life.

**sleep away all your troubles, for I will never be gone from you**

Queen Breha of Alderaan dies when Leia is three years old.

"Your Highness?" Leia has turned off all the lights in her bedchamber and huddled against the wall across from the huge windows, sniffling as she stares out them, tears blurring her vision and making the lights of the city beyond seem like huge stars.

Sabé's voice is quiet and somewhat rasping, neither soft nor light. She has a voice considered rather deep for a woman, certainly not adhering the standards of what's considered attractive, but still sweet nonetheless.

Leia doesn't answer her, struggling to stifle her pitiful gasps and moans as she shakes and trembles under the yawning weight of her grief.

Queen Breha was not her real mother, just as Bail is not her real father, but they have raised her nonetheless, and the woman who has just died is as close to a mother as Leia has ever known. Her grief and pain are just as deep and gulfing as it would have been if it were her own flesh and blood who had perished.

Leia suspects that her birth mother is dead, anyway.

Leia tries not to give away her position, but Sabé finds her anyway. The tall, slender woman bends down on her knees and silently rubs the back of her hand against Leia's cheek, meeting salty wetness; Sabé doesn't like being touched, so this is an unusually demonstrative gesture. She is dressed in deepest mourning black, in a silken gown with voluminous skirt and billowing sleeves that looks foreign to Leia's eyes, with a heavy cloak. In the darkness, all that is visible of her is her narrow white face, made as luminous as the moon. Rustles of silk fill the room.

"Your Highness." Sabé seems incapable of saying anything but this, and Leia isn't about to encourage her to say more.

"I was _not_ crying," Leia maintains with traces of stubborn, obstinate pride that even at her young age are starting to manifest.

"I did not say that you were, your Highness." Sabé's accented voice is neutral and diplomatic, but Leia can see that her dark brown, nearly black eyes are glistening with emotion—sympathy.

There have been fine royal blue silk hanging hung up against the cavernous walls of Leia's commodious bedchamber to give it a softer appearance (such is the tradition with bedchambers of Alderaani nobility), and behind the hangings is, among book cases and closets, a small door.

Leia lets out a surprised squeak as Sabé, with surprising strength even for such a tall woman, lifts her into her arms and, pushing past the hangings, retreats into _her_ bedchamber.

There are no windows in this chamber, and complete darkness permeates everything.

Sabé lays Leia down on a bed pressed up against a wall as she takes off her cloak and puts it back up in a closet. The bed is, Leia realizes, more like a couch, with the bed post sloped like the arm of a couch but still deeply cushioned, just like the body; the sheets are soft and smell of incense and strong, heady smells that Leia can't identify just now.

After a moment, Leia, tears dried up though she still feels very dull and worn down and just a touch sick—she can ignore that for now, is aware of Sabé folding her body down into the bed beside her, and Leia wriggles to give her handmaiden the room to lie down.

"Comfortable?"

"Yes." Leia bites her lip. "I…don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight."

There's a shifting beside her; Sabé's voice is strangely tentative where it is usually simultaneously indirect and straightforward. "I could sing a little bit, if you think that would help."

"You sing?" Even in grief, Leia is still capable of incredulity.

"Yes, I sing. According to those who've listened, I sing quite well."

"O-okay."

After a moment, a voice that is incongruously smooth to Sabé's normal tones emerges, low and soothing, compelling in a way that Breha's lullabies never were.

"_Nemuli imithe uile tui travailion,_

_Er myfi dearoú guilau bod kuilw risw sibhse."_

Despite her best efforts not to sleep and the lingering fear that she'll meet Breha's ghost in her dreams if she does sleep, Sabé's crooning voice is eventually enough to send Leia drifting off, using the older woman's arm as a pillow.

Even after Leia falls asleep, she can still hear her voice, softly singing.

_Nemuli imithe uile tui travailion,_

_Er myfi dearoú guilau bod kuilw risw sibhse_

**precocity doesn't always lend itself to skill**

Leia is ready for many things early. However, just because she is, at five, already eager to know the inner workings of a blaster, doesn't mean that, untrained, she is what any would call an excellent shot.

"I'm beginning to wonder if you'll _ever _be capable of hitting something smaller than the broadside of an Imperial cruiser."

To this, the young princess shoots an angry glare at her handmaiden, dark eyes burning. "I'm not _that_ bad!"

Sabé nods sagely, deep green linen dress rippling in the wind of an overcast day, with her arms folded across her chest. "You're right. You're not that bad. You're worse."

Leia snarls, mercurial as always, and Sabé, with quick, even steps, walks over and takes the blaster from her small hands.

Sabé levels the blaster and, in one fluid movement, shoots the moving target board clean in the center. It flutters away and hits the stone path; they have found a place away from all of the servants and officials to conduct training practice. Leia gapes slightly at the sight.

"Until you manage to do that, my point stands." Sabé's voice is unbearably matter of fact. "Until you manage to do that, I remain unimpressed." Leia suddenly feels intensely annoyed. "For right now, I maintain the point I made to your father. Your Highness, you are too young to be focusing on learning how to shoot a blaster. Your time would be better spent in physical exercises and studies concerning history, politics and etiquette."

Sabé holsters the blaster behind her cloak, tucking it out of sight, and Leia won't see it again for another three years.

Leia frowns petulantly, and stares in furious silence up at her handmaiden for a minute. When she realizes that what works on her father won't force the foreign woman to capitulate, she relents. "Okay. It's close to dinnertime anyway."

As they start to walk back towards the palace, towards Leia's bedchamber so she can be properly dressed for lunch with her father and the other officials of the court, Sabé's low rasp reaches Leia's ears.

"If it's any consolation, I have every intention of teaching you how to handle a blaster when you're older. And I will _never_ make you do your breathing exercises. You get enough grief with that from your aunts."

**because you are born to rule**

The whole thing is over before Leia can really realize what's happening.

She and her father are taking a walk out in the gardens, Sabé following behind at a discreet distance; Sabé always tails Leia these days, her eyes sharp and watchful. Leia doesn't quite know why, but it makes her nervous.

Then, a man emerges as lightning from the shrubbery, holding a blaster.

He points it at Leia.

In this moment, Bail Organa proves that being a politician doesn't automatically make one a coward, and advances on the intended assassin with only his fists to use—Bail, a true pacifist of Alderaan, never carries weapons on his person, especially when taking informal time with his daughter in places that should be safe.

Bail is willing to defend his daughter, but Sabé moves more quickly.

She draws a weapon, a vibroblade (a weapon, Leia notes later, that is outlawed in half the civilized systems) from the folds her cloak, and, with the cool efficiency of a soldier, punches the man in the stomach, then proceeds to emotionlessly gut him.

Blood splatters against the pathway. It has to be scrubbed away later. It stains Sabé's dark clothes too; they have to be burned, and Leia realizes that the reason Sabé wears dark clothes is, at least partially, to hide bloodstains.

It is evening before Leia finally says a word to Sabé.

The shock has finally worn off. Bail, of course, has not let her out of her sight all day, and only leaves when Sabé firmly tells him that she'll set up a pallet at the foot of Leia's bed so she can sleep with her, and that Bail does not need to stay all night long.

"I like to think, Senator, that I myself am _more_ than capable of protecting your daughter!"

Though Sabé's voice isn't particularly loud when she says this, it's still louder than Leia has ever heard her speak, and Bail backs down quickly.

Sabé looks different in her nightclothes, as she draws the curtains across the windows and helps Leia into her soft silken nightshift. She looks softer, almost, with her hair forming a dark shroud softening the sharp outline of her face. She plucks up her snow white skirt as she moves around the room.

"Sabé?" Leia's voice is unusually tentative as she watches Sabé's movements and the older woman starts to undo the many intricate braids in the young girl's hair. "You're…different from the others, aren't you? The other handmaidens of the ladies of the court, I mean."

Silently, Sabé nods, and undresses her young charge, getting her into her blue nightdress before sitting down on the bed besides Leia and answering.

"I…I am not from this world, your Highness, as you have noticed by my accent." Sabé never looks at Leia, letting her hair shroud her face like the hoods she's so fond of. "I…was a handmaiden of Lady Amidala, the Senator and once-Queen of Naboo, up until the time of her death.

"Here on Alderaan, a handmaiden is nothing more than a waiting maid, a woman who helps you get dressed and undressed. But on Naboo, a handmaiden, a royal handmaiden and a senatorial handmaiden is much more than that.

"A handmaiden of Naboo is, yes, a waiting maid and a servant, to help her mistress into her elaborate and often unwieldy gowns, and out of them when the day is out. But she is also confidante and companion. And she is a bodyguard. A handmaiden of Naboo is to protect her mistress even at the cost of her own life. It is without a doubt the most dangerous profession on Naboo.

"During her days as Queen, until my last growth spurt, I served as her Highness's decoy. In times of danger, I would switch places with her for her safety, as I did during the Trade Federation's occupation of Naboo.

"Your father knew this. We met and became friends during Lady Amidala's days as Senator of the Chommell sector. With that in mind did he ask me to become your handmaiden after my lady's death."

Leia tilts her head curiously. "No one ever told me that."

She can see Sabé's jaw tighten. "It's not the sort of story to be frightening young children with."

Speaking of fright…

"Sabé… Why did that man want to kill me?"

"Because you are the princess of Alderaan." Sabé's voice is weary and flat. "And there will always be those who hate those born to rule."

**believe only half of what you see, and even less of what you hear**

The trial and execution of N'Hel Betriss is all over the news stations on Alderaan, not least because he was once a resident of the planet. Leia, of course, hears about it.

"Betriss's execution was yesterday, you know." Having never witnessed one personally, Leia can talk about executions impersonally; Sabé suspects she wouldn't be half so detached if she ever had to watch someone hang from the gibbet as she had as a child.

"Yes, I heard." Sabé's disapproval of the whole thing is hardly a secret; it's made plain in the stiffness of her voice when speaking of it and the offended way her skirt rustles when she walks.

"What was it he was charged with?" Leia would much rather talk about an execution than focus on arithmetic studies, and Sabé, unusually agitated, waves the math book in front of her nose, one hand palm-down on Leia's desk.

Dark eyes glare sternly at Leia. "Get back to work. Your math tutor was very specific about when he wanted this work done."

In defeat, her head pounding, Leia takes the book and flips open to the assigned page. "Alright, alright! Get off my case! I was just asking."

After a few moments of chilly silence passing between them, Leia glaring sullenly and Sabé dark as a storm cloud as she goes to sit in the windowsill, Leia receives an answer.

"N'Hel Betriss was sentenced to the gas chamber for three counts of high treason. Count A was the spreading of seditious documents. Count B was the attempt to subvert the security of the Empire. Count C was for attempting to incite the populace of Coruscant to revolt. Are you satisfied?"

Leia nods firmly. "Yes."

Sabé bites her lip, fiddling with the sleeve cuff of her plain silk dress, a holdover from her days as Lady Amidala's principal handmaiden. "He was innocent, of course," she discloses quietly.

Leia looks up, startled, at this. "Was he really? Why was he executed, then?"

Ever a master of bluntness, Leia knows that Sabé's answer will be such, and is not disappointed. "Because Betriss found out things he was never supposed to know, and the Empire silenced him."

The young princess frowns. "How could that be? The Empire has made vast improvements to the Old Republic's justice system. The courts are more efficient now, aren't they? They should be able to spot this sort of thing."

To Leia's delight, Sabé moves the math book away from her as she comes to sit down beside Leia at the desk.

A strange, boxed-up look has come over the woman's face as she leans over and tucks back a strand of hair that has escaped from Leia's twin buns, a popular hairstyle on Naboo, as Sabé begins to speak. "The Empire," she murmurs quietly, "is…" Her eyes cloud, and she shakes her head. "You'll understand when you're older; I promise you will. Suffice to say, with the matter of Betriss's farce of a trial, witnesses that could have come to his aid were either bought off, intimidated, or arranged to disappear or die.

"Leia, why do you think the Jedi were exterminated?"

That's easy. "They attempted to assassinate the Emperor, then Chancellor Palpatine, and overthrow the Republic," Leia responds automatically, as if prompted by her history tutor.

The mockery of an ironic smile twists hideously at Sabé's lips. "Is that what they told you?"

"Yes…"

Dark hair knotted into a single bun trembles as Sabé shakes her head violently. "This is our little secret, Leia; your father wouldn't want you knowing such a thing so young."

Catching on, Leia grins; it's always nice to learn information few others now. "I can keep secrets, Sabé. You know that."

"Good." The tone of the room shifts, somber and serious. "The Jedi never attempted to overthrow the Republic. They never would have done such a thing. Palpatine had them wiped out because they knew the truth."

"The truth about what, Sabé?"

But no matter what Leia says, Sabé won't answer.

**without a doubt, your father's child**

Leia is aware that Sabé has kept company with important people over the years. She was acquainted with three Queens, the servant of two of them at some point, the principal handmaiden of a high-profile and highly controversial senator, a personal friend of Leia's father Bail, and the close friend of a late Jedi general named Obi-Wan Kenobi.

But what Leia learns one day as Sabé is brushing out her hair is that she knew her parents too.

The way Leia sleeps is especially conducive to putting knots in her hair, something that's going to be especially troublesome today, since—she hasn't paid much attention and doesn't know the exact identity of the visitors—important officials are coming to visit the Alderaani court and Leia's going to have to be _extremely_ decked out in order to actually look the part of a princess. Etiquette demands no less.

That means that the three she-wolves (as Sabé has, for Leia's ears only, nicknamed the latter's aunts), will be assisting Sabé in getting Leia ready for the pleasantries and talks and official dinner that will be taking place today.

Since Leia's aunts always hurt her when they're the ones to brush out her hair, Sabé, more sympathetic to Leia's physical discomfort than usual, has decided to take the initiative and brush out her hair herself.

Leia sits on the edge of her bed, Sabé kneeling on the bed behind her, and winces at the pull of the brush. Sabé is gentler than her aunts; there's no doubt about that. But it's still uncomfortable at times.

"I swear," Sabé huffs, stopping to work out a particularly stubborn snarl with her deft fingers. "Your mother's head was full of curls, not straight like yours, but I never had this much trouble getting tangles out of her hair."

Something in this clicks with Leia immediately. "You knew my mother?" she asks eagerly, craning her neck around.

Sabé doesn't give Leia the satisfaction of making eye contact; she lets her long, wild hair, as of yet unbound, fall over her eyes and hide them from the young girl's sight. "Yes," she finally admits, nodding diffidently. "I did."

Leia is only seven years old, but she's used to getting her way and doesn't like half-measures. "Well?" she prompts Sabé, mentally prodding her. "What was she like?"

A slightly choking sound which Leia realizes to her shock is a small laugh escapes from Sabé's mouth. The Nabooan handmaiden brushes her hair from her face and reveals a reminiscent but bitingly humorous gleam in dark eyes like polished stone. "Pardon my language, but, with respect to your Highness, at times your mother could be a _bitch_."

Leia laughs uproariously. She's never heard Sabé curse before; at least, not in any language she can understand. Leia personally suspects that the Nabooan words Sabé at times hisses under her breath when frustrated probably have meanings she'd be better off not knowing. "My aunts say worse all the time! So I guess I take after her, then?"

Instantly Leia can tell that she has said, while not exactly the wrong thing, something that has struck a raw nerve with Sabé. She goes back to brushing out Leia's long hair, absent strokes upon areas already as smooth as silk. "No, actually, you don't. You have your mother's looks, but are unmistakably your father's child."

"Really?" she inquires innocently, fingering an emerald necklace left lying out on a desk and holding it up to the light. "What was _he_ like?"

This time, Leia knows she's said the wrong thing, but Sabé doesn't lose her temper. "He was…" Sabé bites her lip and looks off. "_Young. _Very impulsive, at times rather brash. He had a quick temper, and poor impulse control. I know that many members of the opposite sex found him quite handsome."

A saucy, conspiratorial smile forms on Leia's small mouth. "And what about you, Sabé?" Her voice is teasing. "Do you think my father was handsome?"

Sabé rolls her eyes. "Only in the most detached way." Humor dies in her face, going back to quiet stoicism. "He wasn't my type, and he was married to a woman I worked with. Besides, he was far too young for me; I was his senior of six years."

Leia frowns as she does mental calculations. "But that means he would have only been twenty-two when I was born, right?" The emeralds are heavy in her hands.

"That's right."

All further conversation is cut off by the arrival of Leia's three aunts, their chatter preceding them long before they come bursting through the door.

**my God, what have I done**

"Leia?"

"Yes."

"I think it's about time we resumed your sharp shooting lessons."

The grin on eight-year-old Leia's face is absolutely evil, and Sabé begins to think that she may not have done the Universe any great favors by agreeing to this.

**reminds me of home**

Despite having always wanted to, Leia has never ventured outside the palace grounds before on Alderaan. Certainly, she has been off-world several times, but the landscape of her own planet is as much an alien, unfamiliar landscape as the plains of Dantooine.

"You have no idea how hard I had to argue with your father to get him to agree to this."

Leia smiles slightly from her sitting position on a large boulder, swinging her legs vigorously. "Oh, I can imagine." Bail is a doting father but still highly protective of his adopted daughter. What she doesn't tell Sabé is that she worked on her father before hand to soften Bail up to the idea of Sabé taking Leia into the mountains for a few days.

The sky is overcast, but not threatening to rain; the clouds don't cry thunder. They are high up in the mountains, far from civilization in any direction (which is, Leia is beginning to suspect by how much more at ease Sabé is up here, how Sabé likes it); the rocks are many, cloaked mainly by the sheltering canopies of pine trees. The wind sings its soft, listless, incomprehensible song and has stiff, prickling pine needles to use as its instruments.

"Yes, I'm sure you can, your Highness." Sabé frowns, hands on hips, as she stares around. "This looks like a good place to camp," she murmurs, more to herself than Leia. "It's sheltered from the wind." She gets down on her knees and starts to take blankets out of the packs they've brought up the mountain, smoothing them down with strangely clinical care.

"Sabé?" Unusually shy, Leia hops down from the boulder and gets down beside the woman as she's laying out blankets; without skirts restricting her movements, Leia is much faster and more graceful on her feet than she otherwise would have been.

"Yes, Your Highness?"

Brown eyes stare up at Sabé. "Will you…please just call me Leia? When we're alone, I mean," Leia elaborates quickly, seeing dark eyes narrow speculatively. "I know you can't when we're in public; propriety and all."

The silence that follows makes Leia nervous, as nervous as a rash, hot-blooded Alderaani princess can get. When Sabé finally answers, Leia lets out a breath of air that feels stale and musty.

"Alright…Leia."

Sabé looks up and smiles a little bit as she takes in the settings around her with a little more clarity. "You know, this place reminds me of Naboo—"

She stops, and the smile promptly dies out of her face, letting the temporary beauty found there shrivel back to its normal state. Sabé's eyes are glazed and far away, seeing sights that Leia is glad she can not see.

"Sabé?" Leia tugs on her coarse shirt sleeve, feeling inexplicably nervous as she stares up at her. "What's wrong?"

Only one eye focuses on Leia's face. "Naboo was very beautiful. Once." Her lips tighten in a tensely angry line. And all she will say for explanation is: "What the Empire did to my world is unforgivable."

**the way is shut, the doors barred against you**

It's late at night, and the pop of the fire crackling is, along with sounds of the wildlife and crickets chirping, the only sound to break the silence.

Sabé's breathing is light enough that Leia can tell that she's still awake, if only feigning sleep. Leia doesn't care if Sabé wants to give the impression that she's sleeping; _Leia_ is curious (hardly unusual), and would like a question to be answered.

"Sabé? Are you still awake?" she whispers.

"I am now," comes the soft, indistinct murmur.

Good enough. "Why don't you ever go home to Naboo? Don't you ever want to visit, or see family?" Leia's just assuming Sabé has family; she never talks about her life except when Leia prompts her.

"I can't." Sabé's clearly trying to shut the door of the topic, as she rolls over and turns her face away from Leia, to hide skin and emotions found ingrained into tissue.

"Why not? Don't you want to—"

"It's not that I don't want to go home, Leia," Sabé interjects her, voice thick with misery and distinct pain. "I've never wanted anything so much in my life. It's that I _can't_ go home."

Leia doesn't understand, but abstains from asking.

**scary thoughts**

"What does it matter? He's dead."

"It matters to me. My father talks about him all the time when there's no one around but me. You knew him too. And I've been doing some research of my own; I can't believe the Jedi were ever as black as they've been painted."

"Well I'm glad _someone_ sees sense."

"Yeah. He was one of the greatest Jedi generals during the Clone Wars, and I know you thought well of him. Do you really want all I know of him to be the smear campaigns so gleefully participated in by the Empire?"

Sabé runs her hand across one of the windowsills, pensive and strangely wistful, staring out at the darkness beyond, before pulling the curtains shut. Her limbs are weary as she sits down on the bed beside Leia.

"Well," Sabé starts, staring firmly up at the ceiling, "the first thing you need to know about Obi-Wan—" Leia notes with interest the lack of any honorific; Sabé's usually very specific about that "—is that, though he was a gifted warrior, he didn't particularly like to fight. If he could talk the other party out of fighting, he would; where do you think he got the nickname, "The Negotiator" from?"

Leia nods. "That makes sense." And truthfully, she has more respect for the reluctant warrior than the over-eager berserker.

Long legs lock together at the ankles, swinging back and forth like a young girl. "He was always very kind—to me, anyway—and patient, though Goddess knows his Padawan and I left that patience sorely taxed at times.

Leia frowns, then giggles. "I can't really picture you making someone else impatient. Usually it's other people making _you _impatient."

Sabé's voice is flat and droll, lips quirking in a smirk. "Oh, you'd be surprised." Dark eyes glimmer in confusion. "There's something I've never been able to understand, though. There was a time, during the war, when Obi-Wan had to bring the Duchess of Mandalore to Coruscant. There was a great amount of hubbub when the Duchess was framed for murder, but that was cleared up pretty quickly." Sabé runs a long-fingered hand through her hair, bewilderment coloring her skin. "And you know, after she left for her homeworld, the first time he and I ran into each other after that, Obi-Wan remarked that he had considered the prospect that the Duchess and I might meet to be one of the more frightening thoughts he's had in his life."

Leia laughs under her breath. Sabé might not understand, but Leia has a pretty good idea what that was about.

**unceremonious entries by yours truly, the Empire**

It all starts to fall apart with the sounds of great, calamitous noise impacting upon the early morning, shattering the veneer of peace and independence that has been built up over the years.

Leia wakes up, groaning, brushing hair out of her eyes blearily as she tries to determine what's happening. There's so much noise outside that the world might be ending; it sounds like a ship is landing just outside her bedroom.

"What on earth?" Ripping aside the blue wall hangings that conceal her bedchamber door, and still dressed in her clinging nightgown, Sabé flies to the windows, pushing aside the curtains so she can see what's going on outside. Hot sunlight pours like bathwater into Leia's cool bedchamber. Leia tugs aside her soft but heavy bed sheets and hops out to join her.

An Imperial shuttle has landed, not on any landing pad, but rather on the lawn of the main courtyard of the Alderaani palace.

Leia looks up at Sabé, brow furrowing. Her face is white, her knuckles bleached and bloodless as they clench graspingly at the sill.

**creatures of shadows**

She's standing in an alcove, behind an ornate silk-thread tapestry. No one can see her, but she can see them.

Leia watches, silent, as her father and Sabé converse in hushed tones in a deserted corridor.

The tall, narrow windows create golden shafts of light in an otherwise dim, ill-lit hall. Bail stands in one of the shafts, but Sabé prefers to stand out of the light, melting into the shadows. Leia can't even tell where the end of Sabé's black skirt ends and the shadows from the floor begins.

Something in their tones, even though Leia can not make out a single word they're saying, makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

**do not give way to despair**

The fact that she's wearing gray shirt and pants, and a dark gray cloak, with boots on and dark hair plaited in a single braid, even plainer in this court of peacocks and starlings than usual, only confirms Leia's worst suspicions.

"You're leaving," she says flatly.

Sabé's dark eyes narrow when she looks at her charge, and Leia is surprised to see sadness there in those onyx depths. Out of all the emotions Sabé has submerged, sadness is the one most deeply buried even when her body practically radiates melancholy.

"Yes." She doesn't even bother to deny it. "I am."

"Is it because of the Imperial delegation that arrived yesterday?" Leia asks petulantly. Then her eyes widen. "It is, isn't it? You're a fugitive from the Empire!"

A snort of…_something_, irritation, disgust, and definitely not ladylike, hits the air. "Don't look at me like that. Leia, you know as well as I do that being a fugitive from the Empire does _not_ make them a bad person."

Leia nods reluctantly, folding her arms across her chest. She takes in a deep breath that, to her mounting horror, is thick and hot. "Can't you just stay here?" Leia asks sadly. "Why do you have to leave?"

"To keep you safe." Sabé sighs and comes to stand in front of Leia. Sabé is, as ever, a tall woman, and at eleven Leia is anything _but _tall. A long-fingered hand brushes the girl's cheek lightly. "I have to go now. You don't understand everything now. But you will. Just like you'll understand this."

She leans down and, in a way that can't be like her—too sentimental, too demonstrative—kisses the top of Leia's head. Her breath is too hot, her lips too cold. A hand squeezes Leia's shoulder tightly. "_Lyúk kai iju fílan enro higālw_."

Sabé sweeps out of the room, not willing to waste her moments any longer.

**arrived too late for the final curtain call**

The once great forests in the south are all gone now, swept away by the burning tides of the great beast with greedy hands, fallen to the fires of industry. The land has in many places been rendered infertile and incapable of supporting crops; the economy of Naboo has all but failed. The earth has been gutted and raped, violated so many times that it is a worn-out thing, no longer firm but drooping in caverns of mud and muck. Forty percent of the fauna has died out, and fully half of the plant species of Naboo has met extinction at long last.

Naboo has flowed with the blood of her people, bled freely in great rivers in the streets of Theed (a city once great that has now been deserted, decrepit ruins and decaying, a failed place) and in rivulets in the far northern mountains where a traveler finds herself now. The population has been cut in half, due to war, to starvation, to disease and to emigration.

The sunsets that were once lauded as a glorious affair of lavender and pink are now only a stale, sterile pale lemon yellow, and the deep, violent crimson of human blood. Leia watches the sun fall over the sea and can not see how this place could ever have been beautiful.

But she knows it was, once. All dying planets were beautiful once.

Winter is coming on the heels of the pale yellow sunset, and Leia shivers, glad for the cloak she was convinced to bring.

Fifteen years has brought them together again, grown woman to a low slab of stone sitting upon gray cliffs.

_Hic uirewen Sabé Irinia, sayyida triém yr Wildder agus cava rhiain triém Amidala, mivau Banríon yr Leiaya triém Naboo. Sayyida Sabé meirvau istigh íse delagai-thoch blwydd triém válle, pyi tredecim triém llón risw íse aelwyd, sabánna æyon yr ran maóith triém yr Minéwe ymlaen Dantooine. Íse helien va ytou enro íse teulu myn a amicus ymlaen Dantooine._

"_Cé go ul llón risw íse aelwyd,_

_Íse croí va beunydd hilgyou aswe talamh."_

In her adult years, Leia has taken the trouble to learn Nabooan. So she knows what the words carved into gray stone in front of her speak.

"Here lies Sabé Irinia, lady of the North and handmaiden of Amidala, one-time Queen and Senator of Naboo. Lady Sabé died in her forty-second year of life, after thirteen years of exile from her home, fighting against the tyranny of the Empire on Dantooine. Her body was returned to her family by a comrade on Dantooine.

"Though an exile from her home,

Her heart was always with this land."

_I guess she never did get to come home._

Leia frowns pensively. There were never any tears, and even if there had been, the time for tears is long past.

She should have come here years ago.

But it doesn't matter, Leia decides, as she kneels on her knees in front of a simple, unadorned grave stone in the northern wilderness of Naboo, the wild places Sabé loved so much.

She's here now.


End file.
